Thursday, April 10, 2008

Space!




The project took a lot longer than planned, but we're fairly pleased with the (semi) final result. We used about three times as much paint as we had expected to get the ceiling navy blue, and about triple the anticipated time for that part alone. We replaced the fixture with one more spherical and "sun-like", and put in a bug bulb that burns yellow instead of white. Then we took some string and chalk and measured out the orbits of each of the planets. We included Pluto even though it got voted out of the planet club. It came in the set. Anyway the orbits aren't perfect because they aren't perfectly circular but I wasn't about to try and get it THAT accurate. After we drew the scale orbits (which, by the way, are 100 million km per inch, e.g. Pluto sits 59 inches from the "sun", which means Pluto's orbit is about 5.9 billion km away). It got tricky with the four inner planets because they're all within about four inches of the lamp. After the planets we added ten constellations but again, were limited with a rectangular flat ceiling and had to improvise since we didn't have the sky. It's pretty accurate. Then we tossed in the glow in the dark stars cause, well, we wanted more glowy stuff.

Now for the rest of the room...

3 comments:

Chris said...

That is seriously cool! You guys should be on HGTV with that stuff! I'm going to come see it.

Nedra said...

I love it! I love that I got to be there in person to see the beginning of the process and now the finished product! Good work you guys, I love you all and your ceiling!

Ashlee said...

That is so cool! Great job! Wanna come do one for us? :) Projects always take us longer and cost more... but the end result is worth it!